Race Analysis - The powerful undercut

By Dan Knutson in Singapore

TRIPLE HEADER

Leclerc started from the pole for the third consecutive race and for the fifth time this season.

POISED

By qualifying his Mercedes second, Lewis Hamilton was poised to attack for the lead at the start.

NEXT

Next in the lineup were Vettel and Max Verstappen (Red Bull) on row two, and Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) and Alex Albon (Red Bull) on row three.

THE ORDER

That order remained the same on the opening lap of the 61-lap race, with Leclerc leading over Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen, Bottas and Gasly.

SLOW PACE

Leclerc kept the pace slow, deliberately bunching up the drivers behind him so that none of them could go for the undercut or the overcut with a pit stop and get ahead of him.

FIRST TO FIRST

Vettel was the first of the front runners to pit and switch from the soft compound Pirelli tires to the hard compound. He came in at the end of lap 19, and Verstappen did the same a few laps later. It was the move that would give Vettel first place.

LAST

The Ferrari team had called Vettel in at the very last moment.

NEXT

On the next lap Ferrari told Leclerc to pit for the soft to hard switch. An upset Leclerc rejoined behind Vettel.

AND THEN

And then Bottas pitted at the end of lap.

RUNNING LONGER

Hamilton took over first place on lap 20. The team decided to have him stay out longer to get the jump on the Ferraris.

TRAFFIC

Hamilton was running in clear air whereas the Ferrari drivers were now stuck in traffic. Antonio Giovinazzi, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll were between Vettel and Hamilton. Hamilton led from lap 20 to lap 26 and then pitted.

ALFA LEADS

Giovinazzi and Alfa Romeo led a world championship grand prix from lap 27 to lap 30!

CLEARED

The Ferrari drivers had cleared the traffic faster than Mercedes had anticipated. Vettel passed Giovinazzi on lap 31 and went on to led the rest of the race.

RECLAIM

Leclerc overtook Giovinazzi on lap 33 to reclaim second place.

SAFETY CARS

There were three safety car periods between laps 36 and 51. On each of the three restarts Vettel was able to maintain his lead.

I WANT EVERYTHING

"I want everything, even engine mode," Leclerc told Ferrari prior to a restart.

"Charles, we need to manage the bring the car home, we need to manage the PU and bring the car home," his engineer said.

"Yeah, I won't do anything stupid - it's not my goal," Leclerc responded. "I want us to finish one-two; I just think it's not fair. This won't change; I won't be stupid."

UNHAPPY

Leclerc was unhappy because he believed he'd lost the win because of Ferrari's pit strategy.

"To be completely honest with you I don't understand the undercut - but we will discuss after the race," he radioed. "My head is down and it will be done until the race (is over). I just want to let you know my feelings."

THE POWERFUL UNDERCUT

Vettel pitting first to undercut Leclerc was the unexpected key to the win.

"The undercut was effectively more powerful than expected, it was 3.9 seconds," Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said after the race. "We were not expecting such a big number. As a matter of fact, when we stopped Sebastian, we thought when Charles stopped the lap after, he would be ahead of Sebastian. Sebastian drove well, got the undercut of 3.9 seconds, that's the difference."

SURPRISED

Afterward the race, after the situation had been explained to him, Leclerc calmed down.

"We have been surprised by how powerful the undercut was," he said. "In the car it was very frustrating, but now out of the car I understand a lot more the whole situation. I'm extremely happy for the team, very happy for Seb too, he deserves it. Now I will move forward. Obviously, I wish I was one step higher today, but it's part of life. Sometimes it goes that way, and I will bounce back stronger in Russia."

TRICKY

Verstappen wound up third.

"At the beginning everybody was going quite slow and everybody was very close together," he said. "Then I struggled a bit with the tires, so we boxed and it was actually quite a good call, because we undercut Lewis (Hamilton). From then on it was always about managing the tires to bring them home. It was a bit tricky with the safety car restarts because this tire gets quite cold but, on general, I'm happy to be on the podium. It's very difficult to overtake here, but we did it on strategy and that's very positive."

WE MADE MISTAKES

Hamilton, fourth, missed out on the podium for only the third time in 15 races this season.

"It's not been the weekend we wanted at all," he said. "I was all over Charles in the first stint and I think we had the pace to win the race today. We discussed the possibility of the undercut in the strategy meeting this morning and I wanted to take the risk but then Ferrari decided to box, so we did the opposite and I stayed out.

"I pushed hard and the tires were feeling good, but after a few laps they started to drop off really quick. We made mistakes tonight, but in this team, we win and we lose together."

NO POINT

Kevin Magnussen clocked the fastest lap of the race. But he did not earn the bonus point because he did not finish in the top 10. That was the first time that has happened since the new rule was introduced this year.

392

This was Vettel's first win in 392 days. His last victory was in the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix.

"I knew before the race that as soon as I got my call to box, that's when I can try and make something with this race," he said. "So that's what I tried to do. It was very late, last corner before the pit entry, and I pushed as hard as I could on the out lap. I'm surprised Lewis didn't react the lap after, but also surprised that they (Mercedes) had such strong pace for a couple of laps, so we had to clear them.

"Once that was done, I really tried to slice through traffic as good as I could to have a bit of a cushion and maybe control the race from there. It didn't work when the safety cars came. So I think the overriding emotion right now is just happy with how the night went."